Women in the artisanal and small-scale mining sector of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This chapter focuses on women who work and live in the diverse, complex, and often-neglected artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) communities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ASM encompasses both the manual extraction and processing of minerals and their subsequent trade. Much of ASM is informal, and it is often characterized by dangerous practices and harmful social and environmental impacts. ¹ Although many ASM communities have existed for years or even centuries, other communities have begun to engage in mining relatively recently, mostly as a result of poverty.